Millions of tons of food are wasted each year in the United States alone.About 35 million tons, to be specific, according to the latest ReFED report. Some 31% of food that is grown and produced goes unsold or uneaten in the US, estimates ReFED, a nonprofit organization focused on reducing food waste.Half of all the food waste comes from consumers. “That’s either groceries — the strawberries that spoil in your fridge — or the meal you ordered at the restaurant and only hate half of or didn’t eat the leftovers when you brought them home,” said Sara Burnett, executive director of ReFED.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat waste wreaks havoc on our planet, she said, noting that 35 million tons of food waste “is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emission of 154 million metric tons of carbon, which is about the same as driving 36 million passenger cars for a year, and it consumes 9 trillion gallons of water, which is about 13 million Olympic-sized pools.”On Thanksgiving alone, ReFED estimated that 320 million pounds of food— $550 million worth— will be thrown away in a single day.The amount of waste is not decreasing even as inflation and food prices rise, according to Burnett, and the cost of being wasteful goes up.We owe it to our wallets and to the planet to do our darndest to reduce any possible waste. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to preserve fresh ingredients for long-term consumption — by drying, freezing, canning, pickling, baking and repurposing them.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“When I was first learning to cook, if a recipe told me to cut off and discard a kale stem, I did it. I didn’t know it was edible, and I didn’t know about the impacts of wasting food,” said Lindsay-Jean Hard, a writer for gourmet food business group Zingerman’s and author of “Cooking With Scraps: Turn Your Peels, Cores, Rinds, and Stems Into Delicious Meals.”“Education is a huge piece: questioning our assumptions, educating ourselves, and then sharing that knowledge with others so we can all do a little better,” she noted.Here are some useful ways to stop wasting food.Have a food planFood scraps can be tucked into savory dishes such as this spinach mushroom frittata. – tvirbickis/iStockphoto/Getty ImagesChef Michele Casadei Massari suggested implementing simple systems at home that work for you such as an “opportunity box” in the fridge, containing “trimmed, labeled bits ready to become soup, salad, or frittata.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Buy less but more often, store correctly, pre-portion, and give …
